Finding information
Statistics
Statistics can be a useful source of information to include in your research. But as with all research you need to think carefully about who has complied the data and for what purpose- is there any bias there? Is it up to date and from a reliable source? What is the sample size? 
Some sources of statistics are freely available, some you need to access via our databases, and some are restricted because they contain contain confidential or commercially sensitive information.
Here we've listed some general sources of statistical information. Your subject guide may also include some key resources specifically for your subject area.
- Statista This link opens in a new window
Statista is an online statistics portal. It provides access to data from market and opinion research institutions, as well as from business organizations and government institutions. According to the company, the platform has statistics on over 80,000 topics, covering Europe (with a focus on the United Kingdom), the United States and China, from more than 18,000 sources. Categorized into 21 market sectors, Statista.com provides companies, business customers, research institutions, and the academic community with direct access to quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and a wide variety of other areas of interest or markets. Data sources include market research reports, such as the Ipsos Affluent Survey published annually by Ipsos Media, Simmons National Consumer Studies and Consumer Insights from Scarborough Research, as well as trade publications, scientific journals, and government databases.
- Passport This link opens in a new window
A unique integrated international market research database with country data, consumer lifestyles, consumer market sizes, forecasts, companies and brands, information sources, major market profiles, market analysis. First time account registration required -- Use your London Met email address and enter ‘Western Europe’ as your region -- Ensure all starred fields are completed on registration screen
- UK Data Service This link opens in a new window
Database of UK social and economic data and statistics. Provides a unified point of access to data from the Economic and Social Data Service, UK censuses, Secure Data Service and others. Requires registration for first time use - search for London Met University on the login page and use your University IT login.
- UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) The recognised national statistical institute for the UK, responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. ONS conducts the census in England and Wales every ten years.
- Data.gov.uk UK public data in one searchable website. Datasets from all central government departments and a number of other public sector bodies and local authorities.
- UK Data Archive The largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the UK. Contains several thousand historical and contemporary datasets.
- Understanding society A study about 21st century UK life and how it is changing. It captures information about people’s social and economic circumstances, attitudes, behaviours and health. Follow up the instructions to register with UK Data Services to access data.
- Bank of England Statistcs A range of monetary and financial statistics, including domestic banking statistics, external finance statistics and international banking statistics.
- London data store Data for London: topics include demographics, housing, health, education, business and economy, crime, planning, art and culture, and more.
- NHS Digital Data Health and care data for England
- Nomis Statistics related to population, society and the labour market at national, regional and local levels.
- UN List of National Statistics Offices Websites In addition to links to country statistical websites, this site has country profiles which include a brief history of the country's statistical system, legal basis, statistical programme and more.
- Eurostat Provides a range of statistical information to the EU that enable comparisons between countries and regions. Themes include economy, population and social conditions, transport, science and technology, transport and more.
- Asian Development Bank The economics and statistics section of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) provides data relating to the environment, economic indicators and international poverty.
- IMF (International Monetary Fund) Data Includes World Economic Outlook, Global Financial Stability Report and more.
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) OECD uses information on a broad range of topics to help governments foster prosperity and fight poverty through economic growth and financial stability. It helps ensure the environmental implications of economic and social development are taken into account. Browse by topic or by country.
- The World Bank Data about development in countries around the globe. Browse or search for data by Topic, Indicators or Country.
- World Trade Organisation (WTO) International Trade Statistics Provides quantitative information in relation to economic and trade policy issues. Its databases and publications provide access to data on trade flows, tariffs, non-tariff measures and trade-in value added.
- UNdata (United Nations Data) Database from the United Nations Statistics Division. Find data for employment, industry, and trade. This single interface has customizable tables, filter and search options which make sorting and locating specific statistical information easier.
- Population Reference Bureau (PRB) Annual reports provide demographic data for the world, global regions and more than 200 countries. Core themes include aging, children and families; family planning and reproductive health, gender, migration and urbanisation youth and much more.
- US Census Bureau International Database A computerized data bank containing statistical tables of demographic and socio-economic data for 227 countries and areas of the world. Country data includes population, fertility, mortality and migration.
- CIA World Factbook Produced annually by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). Provides data and statistics for most countries around the world. Data is available in the following areas: communications, economy, energy, government, military, people, transport, geography.
- FAOSTAT Provides food and agriculture-related statistics collected by the UN in a wide set of time series data related to food production, trade, food security, emissions, land use, and more.
- Making sense of statistics What statistics tell you and how to ask the right questions.
- Royal Statistical Society- advice when looking at stats Short videos giving advice about using statistics
- Full Fact Full Fact checks claims made by politicians, public institutions and journalists, as well as viral content online.
Images
Images are protected by copyright law, here are some general rules to bear in mind:
- Always acknowledge and correctly reference your sources- see our referencing guide for more intormation.
- Use collections which are licensed for educational and research use, see the next tab for some of our library databases.
- If searching online, look for images which have Creative Commons licenses- learn more about Creative Commons and what it allows you to do. Use a Creative Commons search where possible.
- Never publish or post any images online without permission from the rights holder.
- Artstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor features millions of high-quality images and media from some of the world’s top photo archives, museums, libraries, scholars, and artists, including rare materials not available anywhere else. Artstor’s collections also include Open Access collections from partner museums freely available to all. All content in Artstor is rights-cleared for education and research — you are free to use it in classroom instruction and handouts, presentations, student assignments, and other noncommercial educational and scholarly act.
- Bridgeman Education This link opens in a new window
Online image database providing unlimited access to over 1.2m images, all copyright cleared for educational use by institutions, teachers, lecturers, librarians and students. Bridgeman Art Library represents over 1,600 museums, galleries and private collections, and over 30,000 artists. The comprehensive and eclectic range of images spans the curriculum, providing invaluable visual teaching and learning material on a variety of subjects, including: fine art, history, geography, politics, sociology, antiquity, literature and theatre, science and medicine, religion and philosophy.
- Credo Reference Academic Core Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
An online reference resource that provides access to the full text of subject-specific reference titles, dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopaedias, quotations and atlases from a wide variety of publishers. Credo guides students through topics and concepts using visualisation tools and extensive cross referencing. Constantly expanding, it contains over 3 million entries from over 500 titles, including over 200,000 multimedia items and allows seamless searching of your other library resources. This multidisciplinary resource covers anthropology, art, astronomy, biography, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, ecology, economics, education, engineering, environmental studies, food, geography, geology, history, language, law, literature, mathematics, media studies, medicine, midwifery, music, nursing, palaeontology, philosophy, physics, politics, psychology, quotations, religion, sociology, technology, and zoology.
- John Johnson Collection: An Archive Of Printed Ephemera This link opens in a new window
An Archive of Printed Ephemera. The facsimiles of printed material covers the period from 18th to the early 20th century. The archive includes advertising and topographical images, early photographic portraits, material related to the book trade, crime and entertainment.
- Art UK A repository of UK public art. The website brings together art from over 3,400 British institutions. It shows over 300,000 works by over 50,000 artists and is growing all the time.
- Europeana Multi-lingual online collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries, archives and multi-media collections, including images, texts, audio and video.
- VADS (Visual Arts Data Service) A collection of over 100,000 images covering advertising, architecture, art history, crafts, design, dress, fashion, fine art, graphic design, industrial design, jewellery, painting, photography, posters, public monuments, textiles, sculpture, shoes, stained glass.. The image resources are free and copyright cleared for use in UK Higher Education.
- Google Advanced Image Search The Google Advanced Image Search allows you to limit your search according to size, image type or colour, and to exclude certain keywords from your search. Click on Usage rights to select images you can use under Creative Commons.
- Unsplash Access to over 3 million photos under the Unsplash license—which makes them free to do-whatever-you-want with.
Moving images, film, TV & sound
As with images above, remember that audio-visual material will also be protected by copyright law. If you want to use moving images and sound in your work always make sure you have permission to do so and you have correctly acknowledged and referenced your sources.
You can find some general sources on the next two tabs. See also your subject guide for suggestions of resources specific to your subject.
- BoB : On Demand TV And Radio For Education This link opens in a new window
Shared online off-air TV and radio recording service for education institutions. BoB enables all staff and students in subscribing institutions to choose and record any broadcast programme from over 65 free to air TV and radio channels.
- BFI Screenonline This link opens in a new window
BFI Screenonline is an online encyclopaedia and is the single most extensive publicly available resource devoted to British film and television. The site is supplemented by rich and authoritative contextual material by expert writers, specially commissioned for BFI Screenonline alongside thousands of stills, posters and press books.
- TRILT This link opens in a new window
Television and Radio Index for Learning and Teaching (TRILT) is a comprehensive online listings and archive of broadcast programme information. It includes UK television and radio, terrestrial, cable and satellite television (with regional variations), all national and many local radio stations. Data is available at least ten days before transmission and builds up as an archive of programme information and schedules.
- BFI Player Explore archival content on BFI player as it has access to non-fiction film and television titles from the 20th century to the early 21st. Organised under six main themes, each with an introductory essay by an academic historian. Content includes rarely seen government films, written documents, newsreels, TV documentaries, discussion programmes, parliamentary recordings and much more.
- Europeana Multi-lingual online collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries, archives and multi-media collections, including images, texts, audio and video.
- British Council Film Archive Over 100 short documentaries about wartime Britain.
- British Library Sounds Provides free online access to a diverse range of spoken word, music and environmental sounds from the British Library Sound Archive.
- Free Music Archive An online repository of royalty-free music
- Open Music Archive UK based collection of out-of-copyright sound recordings
Newpapers
Newspapers, whether in paper or electronic format, are useful for current information and keeping up to date with daily local and international events. There are a variety of newspaper titles of varying content quality in publication in the UK.
Newspapers are divided into Broadsheets newspapers such as "The Times", "The Independent", "The Financial Times" and "The Telegraph". They provide coverage and analysis on national and international news. Articles are longer than those in the "popular press" publications and provide editorial comment. Other newspaper types in publication are known as "Tabloids" or defined as "popular press". The well known UK tabloids are "The Daily Mail", "The Sun" and " The Mirror".
Using broadsheet newspapers in your research will:
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show that you are keeping up to date with developments and news in your chosen area
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allow you to pinpoint or highlight new developments and issues
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demonstrate that you are aware that there are always changes and new developments and how they impact on the future
To find and search a particular newspaper, go to Library Search and in the main search box, type the name of the newspaper.
To search for newspaper articles across a range of publications, try the library databases below:
- Lexis+ This link opens in a new window
Legal database containing the full text of amended and consolidated UK legislation from 1267 onwards as well as a comprehensive range of general and specialist law reports including the Law Reports of England & Wales, All England Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports and the Family Law Reports. Includes Halsbury’s Laws of England and Wales, a complete narrative statement of the law of England and Wales. You can search and browse over 100 full text UK law journals from a range of publishers including Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press.
- OnlineNewspapers.com This link opens in a new window
Online newspaper directory for the world, with thousands of newspapers listed by country and region, covering North America and the Caribbean, Africa, South and Central America, Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Australasia and Oceania
- Worldwide News In English This link opens in a new window
Links to key online newspapers and news sources worldwide in English langauge. Includes television channel news sites.
Special Collections
The University's Special Collections contain a number of collections and archives of primary source material spanning a range of subject areas. This material can be searched on the Special Collections catalogue. The oversized books (mostly related to art and design) and Artists' Books are also kept here too.
London Met students can visit the Reading Room during opening hours without an appointment, but if you want to look at something in particular, it's best to get in touch in advance in case it is something which requires retrieval. You will find further visitor information, including opening hours for the Reading Room, on the Special Collections guide.
The Special Collections team has created some online resource lists to highlight material in the collections around different topics and themes.
Reference material
Sometimes you may need to check out a fact or confirm a detail about a person, country or subject. Never guess or rely on memory, always consult a well known reference resource online, like Credo Reference.
- Credo Reference Academic Core Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
An online reference resource that provides access to the full text of subject-specific reference titles, dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopaedias, quotations and atlases from a wide variety of publishers. Credo guides students through topics and concepts using visualisation tools and extensive cross referencing. Constantly expanding, it contains over 3 million entries from over 500 titles, including over 200,000 multimedia items and allows seamless searching of your other library resources. This multidisciplinary resource covers anthropology, art, astronomy, biography, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, ecology, economics, education, engineering, environmental studies, food, geography, geology, history, language, law, literature, mathematics, media studies, medicine, midwifery, music, nursing, palaeontology, philosophy, physics, politics, psychology, quotations, religion, sociology, technology, and zoology.
Company and industry information
Library resources can provide you with a range of information on companies and industries. Using these materials can help you research your career path and provide you with information on specific companies and industries. By researching your potential future employers you will not only be preparing yourself for job applications and interviews, but you will also be developing your commercial awareness.
Commercial awareness is an essential graduate skill, particularly for students going into the business sector. Some graduate recruiters have identified that commercial awareness is a skill often lacking in graduates applying for jobs. Therefore, improving your knowledge in this area could give you the edge over other candidates.
Bloomberg
Major industry-level source of current and historical global data on markets, economic indicators, companies, equities and news.
The Bloomberg Suite is located in Holloway Road campus, Tower Building and can be found on the mezzanine area, room T1-20. Students who require access need to ask their lecturer to contact IT via (ask@londonmet.ac.uk).
Add Bloomberg Certification to your skillset with Bloomberg Market Concepts (BMC). This is an eight hour self-paced e-learning course.
- Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Contains full text journals plus summaries to some articles available full text elsewhere and market research data. Subjects covered are accounting, banking, business, economics, finance, management, sales & marketing, logistics & transport. Contains full text of the Harvard Business Review from 1922. Datamonitor, Gartner and others provide market research, industry reports and company reports & SWOT analysis. The Economist Intelligence Unit provides some country reports.
- Mintel This link opens in a new window
Mintel offers access to a range of UK consumer, media and market research reports covering a wide variety of sectors including international travel and tourism and country reports. Each report links to relevant industry news and company information.
- Passport This link opens in a new window
A unique integrated international market research database with country data, consumer lifestyles, consumer market sizes, forecasts, companies and brands, information sources, major market profiles, market analysis. First time account registration required -- Use your London Met email address and enter ‘Western Europe’ as your region -- Ensure all starred fields are completed on registration screen
- Company recipe sheetThe job you are applying for will determine the kind of information you will need to research on a company. However, this recipe sheet provides a basic template for you to start recording company information.
- PESTLE analysisThe PESTLE analysis is a simple tool that can be used to effectively identify key external factors that may affect a company or organisation. This site from the The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development explains what it is and provides a blank template to write your own.
Theses and open access repositories
A list of, and links to, collections of theses and open access repositories. Other types of open access academic work can also be found via the repositories and search engines listed here, such as working papers, research reports, case studies and datasets.
London Met Repository: the University's own digital archive of research produced by staff and researchers here.
Theses
Print theses: these are available in print in the Holloway Road Library Store. Use the Library catalogue Advanced Search feature and choose ‘Thesis’ from the Material Type options to find details. Please complete a Thesis copyright declaration form and we will notify you when it is ready for collection. All print theses are reference only and cannot be removed from the Library.
E-theses: Library staff are in the process of uploading digitised theses to the Institutional Repository, in line with Library policy. This will take time and the thesis you want may not yet be digitised. In this instance, use EThoS, the British Library e-thesis online service. See Finding UK and European Theses, below, for full details of the EThOS service.
- EThOS
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Please note Ethos is currently unavailable as the British Library continues to experience a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack.
- EThOS is the British Library e-thesis online service. It offers free access to the full text of digitised UK Doctoral theses. Users will need to register to download a thesis but can search without registering. Ethos FAQ
- If the thesis you require has not been digitised yet, the British Library will obtain it and digitise it, and you'll be informed when it is ready to download. In some cases, if you are the first person to request a thesis and so it has to be digitised for you, you may be asked to pay towards the costs of digitisation. Library Services will normally cover the cost of digitisation for London Met staff and students.
- DART-Europe E-theses Portal
DART-Europe is a partnership of research libraries and library consortia who are working together to improve global access to European research theses.
- Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
NDLTD is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations.
- Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)
OATD aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world.
- Thesis Commons
A crowdfunded Open Access platform for students across the world to share their undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations.
- CORE
This resource aggregates open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide.
- OpenDOAR. Directory of Open Access Repositories
This is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories, including those in the UK.
- ROAR. Registry of Open Access Repositories
This is a searchable registry of repositories worldwide.
- BASE. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
This is a search engine especially for open access resources, including theses.
- Trove (Australia)
Trove helps you find and use resources relating to Australia. Trove brings together content from libraries, museums, archives and other research organisations.
- AIM25
AIM25 is a major project to provide electronic access to collection level descriptions of the archives of over one hundred higher education institutions, learned societies, cultural organisations and livery companies within the greater London area. New collections are regularly added.
- Archives Hub
This resource brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections. Representing nearly 300 institutions across the country, it is an effective way to discover unique and often little-known sources to support your research.
- Discovery at The National Archive
Discovery holds more than 32 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 2,500 archives across the country.
A selection of open access e-journals.
| Bentham Open | Bentham Open publishes over 100 plus peer-reviewed open access journals. These free-to-view online journals cover all major disciplines of science, technology, medicine and social sciences. |
| Bioline International | Bioline International provide open access peer reviewed bioscience journals published in developing countries. |
| BioMed Central | BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher of 276 peer-reviewed open access journals. |
| BMJ Open | BMJ Open is an online, open access journal, dedicated to publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas. |
| Dialnet (Spanish Journals) | Arts and Sciences Open Access journals in Spanish. |
| Directory of Open Access Journals | DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals. |
| European Geosciences Union |
Open access peer-reviewed journals in the geosciences and planetary sciences. |
| Free Medical Journals | Open access medical content. |
| Hikari | Publishers of Science, Technology and Medicine journals. |
| Hindawi Publishing Corporation | Hindawi Publishing Corporation publishes over one hundred peer-reviewed, open access journals in the fields of science, technology, and medicine. |
| Indian Academy of Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences publishes several open access ejournals. |
| Intech | Open Access journals in Science, Technology and Medicine. |
| Internet Library of Early Journals | ILEJ makes available substantial runs of digitised 18th and 19th century journals. |
| Internet Scientific Publications (ISPUB) |
ISPUB is a publishing house which offers free access to over eighty ejournals on various medical topics. |
| Nature Communications | Nature Communications is an open access journal that publishes high-quality research from all areas of the natural sciences and has an Impact Factor of 10.742. Note: only submissions received after 20th October 2014 are open access. |
| Open Humanities Press | Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing collective in critical and cultural theory. |
| PeerJ | PeerJ publishes the world's scientific knowledge through open access licensing. |
| PLoS | PLOS publishes a suite of influential journals from all areas of science and medicine that contain rigorously reported, peer reviewed Open Access research articles. |
| Project Euclid | Project Euclid provides free access to journals, conference proceedings and monographs in the field of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics. |
| Sage Open | SAGE Open is a peer-reviewed, "Gold" open access journal from SAGE that publishes original research and review articles in an interactive, open access format. |
| Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) | SciELO is an electronic library covering a selected collection of Brazilian scientific journals. |
| SpringerOpen | SpringerOpen includes Springer’s portfolio of 160+ peer-reviewed fully open access journals. |
| SSRN | A large collection of articles devoted to the Social Sciences and Humanities, many in preprint format. |
| Virginia Tech Digital Library and Archives | Digital Library and Archives (DLA) provides access to scholarly electronic journals that are peer-reviewed, full text and accessible without cost. |
| Wiley Open Access | Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines. |
A selection of open access e-books.
| Directory of open access books | Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is a discovery service that points to Open Access books that can be found elsewhere. |
| Bloomsbury Open Content | Bloomsbury ebooks in a range of disciplines. |
| Bookboon | Bookboon focuses on publishing educational material for students and business professionals. |
| Brill Open | Established publishing house providing ebooks, mostly for the Humanities. |
| Clacso | Ebook content from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences. |
| Computers and Composition Digital Press | Computers and Composition Digital Press (CCDP)is committed to publishing innovative, multimodal digital projects. |
| Digital Culture Books | An imprint of the University of Michigan Press dedicated to publishing innovative work in new media studies and digital humanities. |
| Electronic Poetry Center | A central gateway to resources in electronic poetry and poetics. |
| Flying Publishers |
Free medical content. |
| HathiTrust Digital Library | Hathi Trust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitised from libraries around the world. |
| Hikari | Hikari is a publisher of international journals and books in science, technology and medicine. |
| Intech | InTech is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. |
| Internet Archive and Open Library | The Internet Archive is a non-profit project that was founded to build an Internet library. |
| National Academies Press | Over 5000 titles from the US National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council to read online or download in PDF format. |
| NCBI Bookshelf | Provides free access to books and documents in life science and healthcare, (National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine). |
| Oapen | The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. |
| The Online books page | The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. |
| Online Literature Library | A selection of classics. |
| Open Humanities Press | Open Humanities Press is an international, scholar-led open access publishing collective whose mission is to make leading works of contemporary critical thought available worldwide. |
| Open Research Library | Over 20,000 peer-reviewed Open Access books on one platform. |
| O'Reilly open books | O'Reilly has published a number of Open Books--books with various forms of "open" copyright--over the years. |
| Project Gutenberg | Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. |
| re.press | re.press publishes work in contemporary philosophy. |
| Shakespeare, William. The Complete Works | The Web's first edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. |
| Taylor & Francis open access e-books | A range of Open Access books and book chapters covering subjects in the humanities, social sciences and behavioural sciences as well as technology, engineering and medical titles published under the CRC Press imprint. |
| UCL Press | UCL Press is the UK's first fully Open Access university press. |